The wolf and the lamb

Foreign minister Khawaja Asif in an interview with a private TV Channel on Monday night said that the US had been targeting Pakistan by using an excuse of the presence of Haqqani network in Pakistan. He revealed that Pakistan had offered the US time and again to provide evidence against the network and initiate joint operation against the group. He said the same offer was made to Afghan President in a recent visit to Kabul.

What Khawaja has said is the only way to end the blame-game and moving towards finding an amicable solution to the Afghan conundrum. The US refusal to accept the offer smacks of her sinister designs. Its attitude towards Pakistan is quintessential of the Wolf and Lamb story.

I have maintained in many of my columns on Afghanistan and the obtaining situation in the region that the US would remain in Afghanistan for an indefinite period and it was not really interested in bringing peace to that war ravaged country. It suits her interests to destabilise this region like the Middle East. Now some evidence has also emerged regarding US supporting Daesh (IS) in Afghanistan which testifies to my predictions about US designs. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an interview with ‘Russia Today’ on 8th of October 2017 is reported to have said that Daesh had emerged in Afghanistan under the watch of US military and its intelligence agencies. He said that he had more than suspicions that the US bases were used to aid Daesh.

The emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan is going to have destabilising effect for the region as it has been in the Middle East. Reportedly the IS operatives have penetrated into almost all the Muslim countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan. The organisation has claimed responsibility for some of the recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Ironically the US and its allies which ostensibly are pretending to fight the militant entity are believed to be the real culprits for its emergence. They have and are using it to promote their strategic global interests. Apart from Hamid Karzai other authentic sources at the global level have also been mentioning US backing for IS. The US clandestine connection with IS in Afghanistan says it all.

Kevin Barrett, editor of Veterans Today, in an interview with Press TV on 23 November 2016 said “West has created the terrorist groups for strategic reasons, mainly to destabilise the Middle East in service to the geostrategic interests of Israel. This has been going on for a long time. The plan for it was laid at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) in 1979 that was convened by [Benjamin] Netanyahu [who would be the future prime minister of Israel] and many high-level Americans attended. In that conference, they decided that they were eventually going to replace the lost Cold War enemy of communism, which was going to collapse in about a decade, with the civilisational enemy of terrorism. So they went about laying the groundwork for creating this wave of so-called Islamic extremist terrorism and it is really largely made in the USA. The so-called Arab Spring uprisings were “manufactured” at a certain time in order to take advantage of the terrorist groups in Libya and Syria that Western intelligence services had pre-armed and organised in an attempt to destabilise and overthrow the governments of those countries. The uprisings during the Arab Spring were not just popular peaceful demonstrations against unpopular leaders, rather they had been planned in advance to set off the armed conflicts that exist today”.

Former US Army Psychological Warfare Officer Scott Bennett in an interview with Press TV on 14th September 2014 confirmed that Daesh terrorists from North Africa and Persian Gulf countries went into Syria on the checks and dollars and chips and planes and Humvees that the US and Great Britain provided. Referring to the bombing of Daesh by US planes he said “Now the US senses the world opinion being turned against it with regards to its interventionism, its policies of militant interventionism beginning to blow back on them. The US is taking a quick desperate action to try to obliterate the evidence and destroy everything that may be linked back to them.”

The US patronage of Daesh is also evident from the statement of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassam reported in the media on 9th of October 2017 in which he said that US was serving the interests of Islamic State by preventing the Syrian Army and its allies from advancing in the areas controlled by the IS.

The US-Indian nexus in sabotaging CPEC is also part of the strategy to check burgeoning Chinese influence in the region and beyond and offers adequate explanation for Indian refusal to join this mega-economic initiative that seeks to orchestrate shared economic prosperity for the entire region, notwithstanding the fact that both China and Pakistan have invited her to join it. If ever there was any doubt about this nefarious nexus between US and India it was removed by the statement of US Defence Secretary James Mattis before the Senate Armed Services committee in which he reportedly said “The One Belt, One Road of which CPEC is flagship also goes through disputed territory and I think it itself shows the vulnerability of trying to establish that sort of dictate”

The building scenario in the region is not very encouraging and Pakistan might have to bear the consequences of continued instability in Afghanistan for a long time. However it can minimise the spill-over effect by securing and monitoring the border between the two countries to prevent the cross-border movement of the terrorists through unilateral measures which are already being taken.

Putting our own house in order is also imperative to ward off external dangers. To fight the external dangers internal unity and solidarity was absolutely indispensable. Putting the house in order actually means sorting out internal rifts among the political elements and subduing the anti-state elements through collective efforts and impregnable unity. That is what the National Action Plan is all about. Instead of indulging in political wrangling and bringing each other down, the political leadership should support the government and the security establishment in putting our own house in order by implementing the NAP.